Six Ways to Sunday
by tunaro
Summary: Minato is forced to take introspection to a whole new level and he's left to ask himself some tough questions. Will he be able to learn something about who he is or just end up giving in to his own self-loathing?
1. Self-reflection

_Author's note: Wha-bam, Baby! Another Valentine's Day, another new story. Although, I guess this is really just the second story since last time just expanded a one-shot. Whatever, details._

 _Anyways, here's a new story, come check it out. Read it, like it, love it, hate it, review, follow, fav, show it to your friends, whatever you like. Go see Deadpool! (If you're old enough to go see it. And if you aren't sneak into the theater and see it anyway. If you already saw it, go see it again!)_

 _Happy Valentine's, people!_

* * *

The morning sun seeped in through the blinds covering the windows of the dorm, giving just the right amount of light for the pair sitting across from one another at the table a few meters away. On any other day, the warm glow that filled the dorm coupled with the calm silence that came with one of the few people awake this early would have been the perfect start for a relaxing day at home, but right now it was one of the precious few things that were keeping Minato's migraine from consuming his head.

One of the biggest problems right now for both Minato and his head, and the one he was working hardest to remedy at the moment, was describing exactly just how he should be processing this. He'd long since resigned himself to the fact that his life was, quite frankly, not normal so it wasn't like he couldn't believe what was happening. By that same token, he'd seen so much in these last couple months that he hardly felt any sort of fear but he kept himself prepared just in case anything happened all the same.

No, if anything else this whole thing just left him feeling very confused. A simple conclusion, but enough to alleviate Minato's headache a bit and confusion was something he at least knew he could deal with. Hell, an average Tuesday spent with Elizabeth would have probably left him more confused than this. Feeling slightly renewed, he turned his attention back to the morning's other big problem.

"So…"

"…So."

"Sugar?" Minato asked.

A single nod. This conversation didn't seem like it was going to have much actual speaking in it, but that was probably to be expected. They'd already spent the last half hour sitting in silence and just staring at each other.

The small bowl passed across the table and quietly changed hands.

"Thanks. Want some cream?"

"Hm." Minato gave a small grunt of approval and the small pitcher was passed in almost the same way as just a few seconds before. No, it would probably be accurate to say that it was done the exactly the same way as before.

A few more minutes passed as the pair sipped quietly at their coffee until Minato finally couldn't take it any longer.

He cleared his throat and started to say, "So-"

"So."

Minato scowled, and was met with a slightly wry smirk.

"Sorry."

He glared for another second but decided to let it go. There were bigger things to be worrying about right now.

"This… isn't normal."

An eyebrow raised incredulously, and Minato could only stare back helplessly. What the hell else could he say?

"You could definitely say that," the tone managed to keep itself impressively level, but that made it hard to know what he was thinking. Was he really always this stoic? He should probably start working on that.

"What's going on?"

Minato shrugged, "I'm supposed to know that?"

"Well one of us probably should."

Minato sighed at this then moved to put his hand up to his forehead and across the table Minato did the same.

How they rested their arms on the table, the way that they slouched propping themselves up against their seats, the same slight tension they held in their shoulders as they regarded each other, it was clear that the two young men sitting down together were near identical, if not completely the same. The only way to tell the difference between the pair was that one had on the usual pair of boxers and old t-shirt he used for pajamas and the other was wearing his school uniform, the red S.E.E.S. band on his arm and an Evoker holstered at his side.

A thought occurred to the uniformed Minato and he suddenly raised his head. "Maybe I'm just asleep?"

Minato nodded, immediately understanding what he was suggesting.

"On three?"

Minato nodded again. They let their bodies relax and stared each other down before taking a short breath.

""Three!""

The two rushed forward and swung their hands to slap the other as hard as they could across the face. Reeling backwards from the blows, they used their free hand to push the other onto the sides of their heads before doubling over in pain. However, in some small corner of their brains, Minato couldn't help but be a little pleased at knowing how hard he was able to hit when he really put some effort into it.

"D-did it work?" The uniformed Minato groaned, his vision still just a large patch of swimming colors. He wouldn't be very surprised later if he found out a few of his teeth had been knocked loose.

"…No," The plain-clothed Minato managed to answer, of course being in a similar state himself.

"Does that ever work?"

"I don't know."

"Why did we think that would work?!" The uniformed Minato cried out, the initial shock of the blow giving way as terrible, terrible feeling started returning to his face.

"I don't know!"

Once most of the pain had subsided and they managed to recover a bit, Minato asked, "Alright, what else could be going on? Secret cloning program?"

"Maybe one of us is an evil twin from a parallel universe?" Minato offered.

"Doppelgänger?"

"A Kirijo Group robotic duplicate?"

"Government conspiracy?"

"How is that different from 'secret cloning program'?" Minato asked.

Minato shot back, "Why would the Kirijo Group want to try to make a robot of me?"

"Maybe an Anti-Shadow robot modeled after me would be able to use the wild card!"

"Maybe you're just a Shadow that looks like me!"

"How do I know you aren't the Shadow?!"

At some point in all of this both the Minatos had gotten up and started edging closer towards each other until they were literally butting heads. A few more tense moments passed of glaring at each other before they backed away and let out a breath.

"This is stupid," One of the Minatos said.

The other one nodded, "Yeah, sorry."

"Hm," He nodded back.

Both felt the tension that had been building up within them deflate and the two sank back into their seats.

"…You _aren't_ a Shadow, right?" the plain-clothed Minato asked, still eyeing his double with a bit of apprehension.

Minato shook his head, "I don't think so. Are _you_ a Kirijo Group robot?"

He tapped at his arms and torso a few times and gave a bit of his hair a quick tug, "…No."

Both Minatos let out another sigh of frustration and let their heads drop onto the table as they were silently forced to accept that they weren't getting anywhere. Even if they spent all day at it, all the speculating they wanted still wouldn't lead them any closer to figuring just what the hell was going on than they were an hour ago.

Not bothering to lift his head up, Minato asked, "So what now?"

"We should probably let everybody else know what else is going on."

"…Hm," His double just grunted noncommittally and he nodded in agreement. Telling the others was a gamble; it was doubtful the two would resolve this quickly so they would all find out eventually anyway, but the situation was confusing enough as it was. It was hard to believe any of them would be able to do any more than Minato could about this and he couldn't be sure that getting the others involved would actually help or just complicate it further. He didn't know if that was actually _possible_ at the moment, but if anyone could do it, then it was probably Junpei.

"…"

"…Want to just wait until they get up?"

Minato nodded, "Sounds good. Want to go get breakfast?"

"Sounds good. Duck Burger?"

"" _KYAAAAA!""_

Suddenly a loud scream came piercing through the dorm from one of the floors upstairs. The pair shot up and reflexively whipped their heads towards the source of the noise, then quickly turned their heads back to each other.

"Was that Yukari!?"

Minato nodded, but added, "I don't think it was just her, though. I thought I heard Fuuka, too. Come on!"

The Minatos began running towards the stairs and dashing up to the girl's floor, leaving behind the last of their coffee. Even though he already knew, Minato couldn't help but say to himself, "Looks like breakfast is out."

"Damn it."

* * *

 _Author's Endnote: I swear to God, this chapter may have been the most confusing thing I've ever written. I'm a little proud of that. See y'all next chapter, where it's only going to get more confusing from here. Look forward to it!_


	2. Me, Myself, and I

_Author's note: When there's no more room in Hell, I return to stalk the internet!_

 _Anyways, here's the next chapter, hopefully it was worth the wait!_

* * *

As Minato reached the second floor, he wasn't very surprised to see that the doors to the other boys' rooms were wide open; the three of them probably already upstairs. Ever since the first full moon incident back in April, Mitsuru had insisted that everyone in S.E.E.S. start training to wake up at moment's notice.

In theory, they would be prepared to immediately respond in case of another attack at home.

In practice, this meant Akihiko randomly bursting into people's rooms at odd hours of the morning with an air horn and his favorite gloves primed, then chasing them up and down the dorm until sunup.

It was a job he performed … enthusiastically, to say the least. Thankfully, after several weeks of angry, sleep deprived dormmates, Akihiko was finally willing to compromise once Fuuka proved she was more than willing to blow up her door for the sake of a good night's sleep. By the time Ken had joined, new members only had to deal with the training for their first couple of weeks and everyone else only had to do it once or twice a month afterwards.

Just as he was about to head upstairs, Minato held out a hand and stopped his other self behind him. "Stay here. I'll go on ahead."

"Huh?" The uniformed Minato's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why should I do that?"

"We don't know what's going on up there, or if it has anything to do with… this," Minato gestured back and forth between himselves.

The uniformed Minato started to protest, "But-"

Minato sighed, "I know, but right now both of us going up there is just going to end up being the opposite of helping. The last thing we need to do is make everyone else freak out."

"So-"

" _I'm_ going because you're still dressed to fight Shadows. Everyone else was probably still asleep until just now and even if they weren't, it's _Sunday_. Weird thing to wear when there's no school."

"…" The other Minato was about to say something again, but stopped himself and settled for glowering at his double.

Minato gave a bitter smirk in response, " _Of course_ I know what you're going to say. Now stay here; I'll call you up as soon as I can."

With that he turned around and quickly ran upstairs before his double could say another word.

* * *

As Minato watched his other self go up to the next floor, he couldn't help feeling incredibly frustrated, but held back and stayed where he was. What he'd said was right, of course, but that didn't mean that Minato had to like it.

Anxiously tapping his foot to try to offset his unease, he wondered if he should run into his room to get something to defend himself. Most of S.E.E.S.'s gear was kept in the kept on the top floor, but for convenience's sake Minato still kept a few weapons in his closet. Most of them didn't have much actual combat ability, usually they were only meant for practice when he was alone or during nights they were unable to go to Tartarus, but they were still better than being unarmed.

Tilting his head a bit towards the ceiling, Minato focused his ears and tried to get a better idea of what was going on upstairs. He could only hear bits and pieces, most of which was too muffled to even comprehend completely. Mitsuru was yelling… Akihiko's tone sounded like he was trying to calm her down… Junpei said something and Yukari yelled at him, probably to shut up…

Nothing useful. Minato bit back a sigh.

Listening further, the footsteps of his double subsided as he reached the floor. He was saying something but seemed to stop partway through. A brief bit of silence, then Mitsuru yelled something else and a sudden crashing noise made Minato jump. Swallowing hard, he fought the urge to rush up just then and decided to just listen for a just a few moments longer.

One second passed… Then two… Three…

"Uh, hey…"

The other Minato's voice came calling down onto the second ; his tone of voice lacked any of the previous tension it had held, but something about that simply filled Minato with even more dread.

"…You can come up now."

Swallowing hard, Minato realized he'd unconsciously undone the clasp on the holster holding his Evoker. He couldn't summon any Personas outside of the Dark Hour, but it was better than nothing. Depending on what was happening, he might at least be able to use it as a bluff if not just smash it against someone's head.

Slowly making his way up the stairs, he made sure to go up each step as carefully as possible. Even though he'd gotten the OK from his other self, Minato still didn't fully trust him.

Minato paused and suppressed a groan as he realized what a completely asinine thought that was before resuming his climb upstairs with a renewed sense of annoyance. If he made it through the end of this whole "stop the Dark Hour, save the world" stuff in one piece, the first thing he was gonna do was invest in some much needed time with a therapist. The Kirijo Group at least owed him that much. In the back of his mind he wondered if there was any sort of counseling for things like "I woke up one day and there were two of me."

Finally Minato reaching the next floor, Minato quickly asked, "What's going-!"

The instant he stepped of the stairs, something leapt at him and forced him to the ground. Minato tried to struggle best as he could, but he found his arms being held tightly behind him as he was forced to stand up.

"Oh no ya don't. You aren't getting away that easily, Mr. Evil Twin~!"

"Junpei?!" Minato whipped his head around to see that it was in fact Junpei restraining him.

"Ah, ah, eyes front." Junpei tightened his hold on Minato's arms and with a small pained grunt Minato turned back around towards everybody else. Zeroing in on his double, Minato glowered at him.

"You set me up!"

"...Not exactly..." The other Minato bowed his head slightly, and his twin could see that Akihiko was holding him back as well.

"What the hell is going on?"

Well..." The other Minato turned his head over to where the others were.

Following his line of sight, the uniformed Minato's face fell, "Oh, what the _fuck_."

Sitting at one of the tables close by, there were three more doubles (…quintuples…?) of himself tied to their seats with dark red rope and their mouths sealed with duct tape. Like the one before, the trio looked exactly the same as he did, although the one in the center was wearing a thin pair of glasses and the one sitting on his left had a leather choker on. Underneath the ropes, they didn't seem to have anything else on except three identical pairs of blue boxers.

Aigis also sat at the table, apparently finishing off the final adjustments on the bindings of the copy of himself sitting closest to her before smoothly placing her hands in her lap and turning her attention towards him. Unlike everybody else, she didn't seem particularly alarmed at the fact that he'd apparently multiplied overnight. Although, out of all of them, Aigis would definitely be the least likely to see anything wrong with the situation. The thought that she might actually be happy with this development was its own headache, so Minato decided to put that off for later.

Minato's bound copies (of course) mirrored his own shock upon seeing him and all tried to speak up, but the tape kept their words from coming out. Mitsuru quickly turned and shot a murderous glare towards the three, who meekly shrank back into their seats in response. Yukari mirrored her senior's shift in expression and drew back the string of her bow a bit further. Ken and Koromaru were standing off to one side, understandably looking very confused and unsure of what to do, while Fuuka was close behind Yukari and Mitsuru, for some reason a heavy blush on her face.

"Arisato," Mitsuru seethed, directing her voice at the pair and gripping the side of her pajamas so tightly Minato was surprised that the fabric hadn't already torn. "Explain. _Now."_

The two who'd been called exchanged a slightly confused look.

" _Either_ of you. What is going on here?"

The two ungagged Minatos shrugged simultaneously.

""We have no idea.""

"I was thinking he was a Shadow."

"I was going with new Kirijo Group robot."

Mitsuru held her gaze at them as level as she could for a few moments longer, then turned towards Aigis. The rest of S.E.E.S. did the same. Aigis turned her head and carefully looked back and forth between the Minatos. The slight whirring sound coming from her head and the way her irises kept shifting in color slightly told Minato that she was scanning all of them. Finally she stopped and turned back towards Mitsuru.

"I was not informed of any new series of Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons currently or previously in development, and my scanners have not picked up any traces of Shadows within range of the dorm. Further, thermal and x-ray sensors suggest that all five of the Minato-sans are indeed human. However a more thorough visual analysis will take some time to complete."

"…I was also going with secret government cloning program," The uniformed Minato offered.

Aigis tilted her head slightly in contemplation, "…Though improbable, I cannot discount that as a possibly."

Minato smirked at his double, who only rolled his eyes.

Mitsuru sighed and put a hand to her forehead, "Very well. Arisato, please continue."

"I just woke up in my room."

"I woke up at school. A cop found me sleeping at the gate and told me to go home."

"He came in while I was making coffee."

"We were trying to figure out what was going on, but then…" The uniformed Minato trailed off.

"This," The plain-clothed Minato shrugged apologetically.

"I see. Then, were you able to come up with a plan before coming up here?"

"Actually we were going to get breakfast…"

Mitsuru's glare sharpened.

"I mean we were definitely going to come right up here and tell you what was going on?" The uniformed Minato quickly corrected himself.

The other Minato turned to his twin, "I think you can guess what happened after that."

"So what was that crash?"

Minato quickly looked towards the girls before answering, "Yukari got… startled when I came up."

Minato and Akihiko took a slight step to the side to show his copy the shattered remains of a vase that had valiantly tried to stand up to the strength of Yukari's bow. Minato pointedly ignored the arrow not three feet from where he was standing, firmly lodged into the wall behind his head.

"What about those three?" The other Minato asked. "Have they said anything?"

"He's right, Mitsuru," Akihiko nodded. "We might be able to find something out if we try asking them-"

"Absolutely not!" Mitsuru shouted so loudly that they all stepped back in surprise. "Those three are to be kept restrained indefinitely!"

The uniformed Minato leaned back and whispered to Junpei, "What the hell happened up here?"

He shrugged. "No clue. By the time we got here those three were already down, and Fuuka 'n Aigis were tying 'em up."

Calming down a bit, Mitsuru crossed her arms, "In any event, do any of you have another suggestion about what we should do next? I must admit, I'm at a loss."

"We should probably try to figure out which of these is the real Minato first," Akihiko said. "Seems like it'll be the fastest way to figure out what exactly is going on."

Junpei asked, "What if none of 'em are the real one? All these guys could be a bluff while our Minato's getting locked up somewhere else."

Everyone stopped to stare at him.

He shrugged, "…What? It's what I'd do."

"""…."""

"…Can someone else please hold me?" The uniformed Minato asked.

"What?" Junpei asked defensively.

Mitsuru sighed, "Well, I can't deny that identifying the real Arisato would be an improvement. But how would we go about this? Even with Aigis' scanners, we have no way of confirming who the real one is."

"What if we try asking them individually about stuff only the real Minato would know?" Fuuka suggested, then when Yukari and Mitsuru glared at her, quickly added "I-if it's just one at a time it shouldn't be too bad."

Akihiko shook his head, "Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be that easy."

"Agreed," Mitsuru said. "If there is another party behind all this, then they've taken great pains to replicate both Arisato's appearance and mannerisms. We should expect that they've been just as thorough looking into other areas of his life as well."

Junpei said, "If we could wait until the Dark Hour, we could just try to have them summon Personas and see what happens. We need something that the other ones can't fake…"

As everyone was at a loss, silence descended on the floor once more. As they all contemplated what their next move should be, the plain clothed Minato stifled a yawn as his lack of sleep finally caught up to him. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he turned to his double, who was looking at him with a similarly inspired expression.

"Do you think…?"

The uniformed Minato quickly nodded and turned around.

"…Mitsuru-senpai, would it be alright if we took this conversation downstairs? I think I have a way to-"

"Certainly," Mitsuru nodded instantly.

Minato blinked, "Eh? But-"

Mitsuru turned over to Akihiko, "Akihiko, Aigis, I'll trust you to escort _those three_ downstairs. Iori, I'll leave the other two Arisatos to you."

"Understood," Aigis nodded, and picked up two of the chairs next to her and the seated Minatos with them.

"Well then, is there anything else before we move out?" Mitsuru asked.

Before Minato could say anything more, the door at the end of the hall swung open and a girl with auburn hair thrown up into a hasty ponytail popped out of the room.

"Geez, what are you guys doing?"

Groggily rubbing on her eye with the heel of her palm she continued, "I swear, if this is another of Akihiko-senpai's drills I'm gonna-"

Looking up, she stopped talking when noticed the three blue-haired boys tied up at the table.

"…Um, who are they?"

Junpei blinked, "Uh…Who the hell are _you?_ "

"Uh, Minako? …Your classmate? I live in the same dorm as you?" the girl answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The uniformed Minato raised an eyebrow, "Mina _ko_?"

"W-why are guys all looking at me like that?"

* * *

 _Author's endnote: Yes, it's been a few months. No, I'm not dead. Yes, I do suck; sorry 'bout that._


End file.
